I fear that we’re soon going to end up back in IE days where Chrome and its derivatives are going to be the only engines people care about. That will give Google incredible leverage over future direction of the web.
While Chrome is technically open source, the reality is that Google controls its development pretty tightly and it regularly introduces features without bothering to consult with W3C or follow standards. They’ve also played around with crippling ad blocking extensions, not a big surprise with them being an ad company.
While it’s possible to fork Chrome, the reality is that it would be a herculean effort to keep an independent implementation going. At that point you’d need a foundation similar to Mozilla to do that.
In my opinion, it’s really important to keep Firefox alive because having at least two open implementations is key for ensuring that there are minimal standards for the web. Internet is too important for Google to become the gatekeeper for it.
I fear that we’re soon going to end up back in IE days where Chrome and its derivatives are going to be the only engines people care about. That will give Google incredible leverage over future direction of the web.
While Chrome is technically open source, the reality is that Google controls its development pretty tightly and it regularly introduces features without bothering to consult with W3C or follow standards. They’ve also played around with crippling ad blocking extensions, not a big surprise with them being an ad company.
While it’s possible to fork Chrome, the reality is that it would be a herculean effort to keep an independent implementation going. At that point you’d need a foundation similar to Mozilla to do that.
In my opinion, it’s really important to keep Firefox alive because having at least two open implementations is key for ensuring that there are minimal standards for the web. Internet is too important for Google to become the gatekeeper for it.